When Republican presidential candidates descend on Southern California next week for a debate and a state party convention, a new conservative group wants to ensure one specific topic is still top of mind: support for Ukraine.
With ads running on Fox News leading up to and during the second debate — and a mobile billboard encouraging support for Ukraine rolling around Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield office — the new “Republicans for Ukraine” coalition wants to give California voters “permission” to advocate for continued U.S. aid for the Eastern European nation amid Russia’s invasion, said spokesperson Gunner Ramer.
“What our group hopes to see from the debate (from candidates) when asked,” said Ramer, “is a no-nonsense stance on supporting Ukraine, that it is in the vital interest of America to make in investment in supporting Ukraine and standing up to an authoritarian like Vladimir Putin.”
Support for American involvement during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “traditional, conservative value” that embodies the “Ronald Reagan type of Republican Party,” he said, invoking the namesake of the presidential library where the Sept. 27 debate will be held.
As the first debate showed last month, Republicans aren’t all in agreement on how much aid the U.S. should continue to provide Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion. In one particularly tense exchange, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy clashed over the issue; Ramaswamy said he would not support Ukraine because that would push Russia and China closer while Haley accused him of having no foreign policy experience.
But in Orange County, both GOP members of the congressional delegation back Ukrainian aid — and both scored “A’s” on a report card released by Republicans for Ukraine on Monday, Sept. 18.
House Republicans were scored based on criteria that included public comments about Russia’s invasion and votes in Congress that…
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